When it was sent into circulation the site had already received “6 million hits” – so it was suggested that “the pendulum has started to swing”. I don’t know whether 6 million hits reflects six million consents. I’ll leave it up to each one to decide what to make of this video. I have three comments to make.

The first is that the US Constitution is the only one which, following a Civil War that killed 620’000 soldiers and an undetermined number of civilians, had to be amended in order to abolish slavery. It is also somewhat difficult for me to praise the Declaration of Independence, which states: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” when these lines were written by a man who lived off slavery all his life – including his personal one.

The second comment relates to the video’s all-round condemnation of “statism”. The state is portrayed as the enemy of freedom and personal responsibility. Presumably, the authors would consider Robinson Crusoe’s life on the forsaken island the closest one can get to Paradise.

Yet “statism” – the victorious armies of the Union – were instrumental in bringing freedom to slaves. And “judicial statism” – the liquidation of the Jim Crow laws by the US Supreme Court – brought about the second “revolution” in the country – one that drove the integration of African-American citizens into the mainstream of society. “Nullification” – a legal theory that a U.S. State has the right to nullify, or invalidate, any federal law that a state has deemed unconstitutional – arose around the issue of slavery, and its philosophy lay behind the Secessionist drive.

There has been a recent social experiment in revolt against “statism”, so we can learn as to what might happen when grass-root forces are unleashed. “To rebel is justified” – in 1966 Chairman Mao encouraged attacks on virtually all of the existing party apparatus, and this rebellion extended to all forms of authority: parents, teachers, doctors, scientists, musicians, artists and intellectuals of every kind. The Red Guards did a thorough job – though with some collateral damage, a few million dead, and countless physical and psychological violence.

The third comment, and the reason I bring up the “video” in a diplomacy setting, deals with the final and summing up statement: “American exceptionalism shall prevail”. This assertion is preceded by ample footage of US soldiers gaining honor by defending the “American way of life” around the globe.

I’ll grant that the authors of the video may only dimly understand what “American exceptionalism” stands for. Located at the other end of the foreign policy spectrum from cosmopolitanism and internationalism, exceptionalism recalls imperialism without “white man’s burden”. It is a stance that divides the world into the antagonistic duality of “them” and “us”. The former lose it, the latter have it – and those who “defend” gain honor (I’ll leave open whether defense is displaced aggression).

Military honor is inextricably combined with violent humiliation of the “other”. While we may never be able ever to design a “just” society – whether at the national or the world level – we may aspire to a “decent” one. A decent society is one that – in the words of Avishai MARGALIT[1] – does not humiliate. To have the Marines and the Navy Seals pop up anywhere in the world as soon as “they” sense danger for American exceptionalism, would be humiliating. No “world society” can go on for long with this kind of imbalance. If power corrupts, powerlessness does too[2], and the strong feels free to break rules, the weak will do so with the deadly desperation of one who has nothing to lose.

I’ve put “they” in inverted commas, for the current evolution in US policy appears to be moving increasingly toward covert activities – be they in the military or the electronic sphere. With it goes lack of accountability – worldwide, at home, or even within the executive branch. The Unified Executive Theory may, in the case of the US, lead to a two- or even multi-tier government without accountability – when coupled with explicit or implicit delegation of power (which facilitates deniability). With it also goes the debasement of official or public diplomatic discourse, which is downgraded to “discretionary” or interlocutory (i.e. until the Seals silently strike).

Cold War brought open posturing along a well-defined “Iron or Bamboo Curtain”. It was frightful, but it brought stability. The “war on terror” might be mutating into a “war for exceptionalism” – by means more foul than fair, but foremost: covert, and without frontlines. When governments feel authorized to launch “covert activities” anywhere in the world – as long as they can deny involvement – instability will mount. And with instability comes the risk of miscalculation.

Meanwhile, war has become a spectator sport. The citizenry (whose sons were once drafted into war, and died, or returned to tell a tale of horror) is now regaled with “arcade-style war games”. They cheer on. This is war at second remove – seemingly bloodless, for it is the blood of the humiliated that it is spilled.

Regarding Thomas Jefferson and slavery, it ought to be recognized that Jefferson worked throughout his life for the abolition of slavery, including the slaves he inherited together with mortgages on the family plantation. It does not seem to be commonly realized that when human beings are legal property, then security interests like mortgages can claim an interest in them, particularly when the slaves are required to work a plantation, the income from which plantation is necessary to pay down the mortgage. Thus, had Jefferson hypothetically freed his slaves (and he famously died in fairly deep debt), the slaves would have been recaptured as the property of the banks holding the mortgages, and Jefferson’s personal home and plantation would both be subject to foreclosure on account of Jefferson’s “waste” and mismanagement of the physical and human property upon which the banks held their mortgage security interests. Thus, had Jefferson freed his slaves they would not have in fact enjoyed freedom, and Jefferson would also be out of a home.

In the face of this paradoxical challenge, Jefferson worked throughout his life for the legal abolition of slavery, which would have made security interests in slaves illegal and void. When first elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, at age 26 Jefferson’s first bill introduced was for the abolition of slavery. Later in life, Jefferson presciently and correctly feared and predicted that pro-slavery interests were so strong that it would likely take a Civil War to rectify the situation, and indeed it did.

I do not believe that the fact that the US Declaration of Independence and Constitution are entirely discredited on account of the enormous power of banks and pro-slavery institutions, especially when those pro-slavery powers were identified and struggled against with only partial success. Slavery interests should be seen as powerful economic special interests that attempted with substantial success to block progress in human rights that was the direct and logical requirement of the language of the Declaration of Independence. In fact, in his later years Jefferson begged a friend not to mention the following during his lifetime (so that he could live out his last years in a bit of peace): If one only followed the logic of the Declaration of Independence it would necessitate local democracy, republican form of government for nations (because of the problems of distance demanding election of representatives) and the abolition of slavery. Jefferson was quite well aware of the revolutionary character of his Declaration of Independence, both in the immediate context of the American Revolution as well as in its long-term importance for the further revolutions Jefferson famously stated would be both necessary and desirable from time to time.

Under the above kinds of circumstances, I think the fact that Jefferson owned slaves, rather than making his writings somehow less credible or honorable, in fact makes his authoring of the Declaration of Independence all the more remarkable, because it constitutes a powerful declaration even against his own personal economic interest. It is more powerful for a slave-owner or former slave-owner to argue against slavery than it is for someone who has never known or seen the institution of slavery itself and what it does to people, both slave as well as master. It degrades both, as Jefferson noted. And it continues to unfairly, in my opinion, degrade Jefferson even today, hundreds of years later, as in the negative reference to Jefferson in the blog entry above.

Thomas Jefferson became President under the 3/5th rule (hence his sobriquet “Negro President” current at the time), and he inaugurated the Slave Power system that lasted until the Civil War (For an assessment of the whole period, see Garry WILLS (2003)”Negro President.” Jefferson and the slave power. Houghton, Mifflin.

In detail:
• The 1787 Ordinance on the Western Territories forbade slaves in them. “With the acquiescence of President Washington and Secretary of state Thomas Jefferson the clause was generally ignored”. (ibid. p. 23-24)

• He failed to lead in the Congressional Debate of 1790, and allowed his trusted ally Madison to scuttle the issue of emancipation.

• Jefferson’s drive to open the University of Virginia was meant to provide educated defenders for the extension of slavery westward, to keep good Southerners away from Harvard and Yale, where men were taught “the sacred principle of our holy alliance of ‘restrictionism’” (ibid. p. 9)

• The surreptitious inclusion by Jefferson through Skipwith of Art III in the Louisiana Acquisition Treaty provided the basis for having slavery in this territory. See: Roger G. Kennedy (2003): Mr. Jefferson’s lost cause. Land, farmers, slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase. Oxford University Press (p 188 ff.).

• Since 1805 Jefferson “kept repeating the avoidance argument: “I have most carefully avoided every public act or manifestation on that subject.” (ELLIS, p. 240), contrary to Benjamin FRANKLIN, who made of the abolition of slavery his last campaign.

• In 1820, at the time of the Missouri compromise, Jefferson asserted that Congress had no power to ban slavery in any state.

The personal circumstances of Mr. Jefferson are not my particular concern. What is relevant is that he helped create, inaugurated, and massivle augmented Slave Power, and till the end defended it. Sure, he may have regretted slavery, but he was not prepared to weaken the Southern hold on power in the US just for the sake of slaves. In fact all the way down to the Missouri Compromise he did support entrenchment of Southern power.

But you seem to forget the context of my remark. Here we have a video that construes American exceptionalism today on the grounds that the Declaration of Independence was such a “divine” document. Against this religiously tinted view of US destiny my argument here is twofold: (a) exceptionalism in international relations is unacceptable, no matter what, because it divides the word in “we – the Righteous” and “you – over whom we shall prevail”; (b) (and subsidiary) in any case the document cited was less than perfect. I do not need to get into a spitting context as to “how bad” it was.

I would not have damned Jefferson just because he struggled to pay his debts and therefore could not liberate his slaves.

You write: “In the face of this paradoxical challenge, Jefferson worked throughout his life for the legal abolition of slavery, which would have made security interests in slaves illegal and void”. I’m afraid you provide little evidence that Jefferson did so throughout his life. In fact, he used the full power of his Presidential office (if he did not exceed it), objectively to secure slavery’s future in the US.

The Louisiana Purchase, and in particular its Article III, were the basis for the EXTENSION of slavery beyond the Mississippi and the basis of the subsequent Slave Power. It appears that Art III was introduced late into the treaty, and on the behest of Jefferson (through his agent Skipwith), who masterminded it all. Art III was the basis for admitting Mississippi and then the other states as slave states.

Whether Jefferson had Art. III introduced as a tactic so to facilitate passage of the Treaty through Congress (the south held the majority of votes) and thus slavery slipped in collaterally, or whether he deliberately chose to have slavery is moot a question.

Jefferson had good reasons for doing so in either instance: while he was a plantation owner, he was also a land speculator, and his only serious hope to get out of debt was the latter way. As his land deteriorated under tobacco/cotton he had no chance in hell to get out of debt by improving Monticello. And we are not talking of his spendthrift life-style, which in practice made it impossible for him ever to get out of personal debt.

Mind you, Washington was probably the sharpest land speculator of the period – but he did it as a private individual. Jefferson used the power of his office, and in so doing he sealed the fate of slavery in the US South. It was the scope of the Louisiana Purchase that turned the table on slavery, together with ginning of cotton.

2.The “value” of the US Constitution

You state: “I do not believe that the fact that the US Declaration of Independence and Constitution are entirely discredited”, and I’d second you. They are documents of the time, with all the foibles that attach to historical things.

It is the present transformation of these documents in US political discourse into “Mosaic” texts, above all criticism, immutable and perfect, that I consider dangerous. The “know your Constitution” campaign is akin to “know your catechism” in its intensity. The debates over the Constitution were secret, the compromise language often murky at best. To assume and pretend that anyone today can just leaf through the wordings of the Articles and KNOW the Constitution is nonsense.

In any case any Constitution is a living document, as John Adams said on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. To presume that today’s US is fettered to 1787 wording by chains of golden perfection just shows immaturity, or rank partisanship.

I trust that I shall be paid handsomely for providing you with the evidence you claim is missing regarding Jefferson’s opposition to slavery throughout his life. For starters (and keeping original sources in my back pocket in case you attack this one as potentially biased since it is from Monticello itself):

[start quote] “Thomas Jefferson and Slavery

Thomas Jefferson was a consistent opponent of slavery throughout his life.[1] He considered it contrary to the laws of nature that decreed that everyone had a right to personal liberty. He called the institution an “abominable crime,” a “moral depravity,” a “hideous blot,” and a “fatal stain” that deformed “what nature had bestowed on us of her fairest gifts.”

Early in his political career Jefferson took actions that he hoped would end in slavery’s abolition. He drafted the Virginia law of 1778 prohibiting the importation of enslaved Africans. In 1784 he proposed an ordinance banning slavery in the new territories of the Northwest. From the mid-1770s he advocated a plan of gradual emancipation, by which all born into slavery after a certain date would be declared free.

As you can see from the link, the article goes on to describe some apparent contradictions or “complexities” in Jefferson’s later silence on slavery, but I would ascribe that silence to the extent of his prior heroic efforts against slavery, met with defeat, and followed by a period of waiting for a better opportunity to come (since anti-slavery Revolutionaries were convinced slavery’s days were numbered in any event. They were numbered, but the number was higher than they thought). I do not at all believe Jefferson had a change of heart around the time of the Louisiana Purchase.

At the time of the purchase, there had been a delicate balance in the Senate between slave states and free states. Six of the original 13 states and five new states had permitted slavery, while seven of the original states and four new states did not permit slavery, leading to an 11-11 tie. This meant that free and slave states each had 22 US Senators. In addition, it was long known and established that states north of the Ohio River and the Mason-Dixon line were free, while those south could have slavery.

In negotiating the Lousiana purchase, if Jefferson had continued the Mason Dixon line in some fashion, no matter where he drew the line it would at least impliedly permit slavery somewhere, and legitimate it. On the other hand, if he were to purport to outlaw slavery in the Purchase, it would lead to a political or constitutional crisis, such as had happened before given the delicate Senate power balance and then did in fact occur with the Missouri compromise, when the first state to seek admission to the Union was MIssouri (with 10,000 or so slaves) and admission of Missouri threatened to destroy this Senate balance. Ultimately, Maine also applied for statehood and thus by letting both states in, the balance was preserved.

THe Missouri Compromise is not Jefferson’s work per se. But it does tend to show how impossible it was to deal with slavery as an issue – a true third rail political issue that ultimately cost over 600,000 lives to settle.

Given the enormity of the issue and the passion of the South to defend slavery at all costs, it baffles me to think how Jefferson (either with the stroke of his pen or through magically ridding himself of the slaves he possessed but the bank owned) could have solved the problem on his own. God knows he tried, anyway.

I believe what’s fair to say is that Jefferson was against slavery all his life, that his debt explains why he did not personally free his own slaves, and that any apparent silence or action seeming to be to the contrary is readily explained by the fact that he was a responsible politician, wishing to push had for justice but not at the expense of a bloody civil war that would come, alas, anyway.

The Monticello quote above will also, perhaps, give you fodder, since Jefferson wrote a few references to the “inferiority” of blacks and likened them to children. (THese however should be seen in the context of other, much better quotes). Here, I believe Jefferson refers to the “legal incompetence” of slaves as citizens or to have freedom, and, in effect is saying that IF WE ARE to have the charge of such “inferiors” we must treat them with all the care and affection with which we treat the others we have charge of and do not allow much freedom: CHILDREN.

THis rhetoric is embarrassing now to say the least, but considering that Jefferson provided a lifestyle for his slaves well exceeding that of poor free white folks of the time, it seems consistent. In any event, the readers of the words he wrote would have the effect of getting slave owners to treat their slaves BETTER, i.e. more like children to be cared for and prepared for *eventual freedom”, as we must do with children. These ideas of inferiority and childhood were a reasonable way to push for abolition at the time, without triggering a civil war.

In fact, Jefferson’s last minutes of life, by his own choice, were spent with his slaves, who he really treated as family, and not with any of the white well-wishers who were there.

Back to the main overall point of your post, the main problem with American exceptionalism as I understand it is the abdication of the responsibility to call the good the good and the bad the bad. Thus, exceptionalism fails to admit to the evils one’s own country has done, on the grounds of it being exceptional in nature, thus refusing to call an evil bad, and leave it at that.

On the micro level, your views on Jefferson constitute a jaundiced “un-exceptionalism” so to speak, in that they appear to confine Jefferson to the hell of a pro-slavery position, both without knowing or acknowledging Jefferson’s extensive work against slavery, and without acknowledging the enormously volatile and dangerous political contexts in which he and his presidency operated, pressures which were strong enough to pressure President Jefferson to do things he would otherwise not have done. Thus, the Louisiana Purchase’s treatment of slavery issues is readily explained by the context of the politics of the time, which were such that mere moral courage (of which Jefferson had much) was no where near enough to create even a reasonable chance of success. Doing anything but punting the slavery issue into the future (in the form of admitting states, or not, as they applied) would have jeopardized the entire Purchase plan. (Jefferson, BTW, far from being a pure land speculator, actually authored the bill in Virginia to donate the land to the federal government that later became the four states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Ohio.)

At a minimum, the duty to call the good the good and the bad the bad requires an acknowledgement of Jefferson’s strong anti-slavery beliefs “throughout his life”, and to “condemn” as appropriate those actions that are most likely the result of regrettable political compromises nevertheless based on very volatile and even deadly political circumstances. Thus, while I agree with your general ideas on the problems of exceptionalism, in picking on Jefferson and the issue of slavery, you both select a poor example upon which to illustrate your point, since Jefferson was (relatively speaking) the most exceptional of the Founders and the least quoted or understood by exceptionalists.